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Jan. 6, 2010: Considered opinion about warming

To The Editor:
John E. Cerullo, in last week’s letter to the editor, fundamentally agreed with my assessment that some scientist will bend the truth in favor of their financial source. By his own example of a scientist involved in the tobacco fiasco he makes my point. I agree on his position that we are addicted to foreign oil. We know or should know that the Americas have as much oil as the far east. It is a political decision that we are not taking advantage of it. His statement that global warming is a scientific fact and, by inference, caused by fossil fuel is naïve in that all of the evidence is not considered. Example, on this planet there are now about seven billion people, contributing carbon dioxide (from breathing) to the planet equivalent to the burning of 250 trillion gallons of gasoline.
Carbon dioxide, from breathing, is of the same order of magnitude as that emitted by the total of the worldwide number of gasoline engines. In a little over two decades, if present trends continue, the number of people added to the planet will more than make up for any carbon dioxide pollution which would be diminished if we invoked all of the “Going Green” schemes presently proposed.
It is interesting how many intelligent people cannot see their own contradictory behavior. This, far too frequently, renders persons dysfunctional because they worship a “Party Line” at the expense of innate intelligence.
To shrug off the finding of hundreds of scientists with opposing views is to behave as a partisan. The only time the average person questions what he believes is when cold, cruel Nature shoves fact square in his face. Only a few, during conditions of small stress, will take the step of inner questioning. Most simply “go with the flow” swimming in their delusions and believing whatever is popular to believe.
I am wary of all who refuse to step beyond the bounds of their party line’s “quotes” and “studies” and all of that, for such purveyors refuse to recognize anything as truth unless it is endorsed by their political party. Such people will never alter their views even if reality breaks their back, which it will eventually do. That said; it is not my wish to diminish anyone but only to champion “thinking for one’s self.”
One of the hazards of writing anything is wondering if what was expressed was indeed interpreted as intended. What I write is only my considered opinion based upon what I believe to be fact, as weighed against the political posturing of partisan politics issuing from Washington.